


Take Note

by oneawkwardcookie



Category: Limitless (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Getting Together, POV Rebecca Harris, Post-it Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28947111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneawkwardcookie/pseuds/oneawkwardcookie
Summary: Brian cracks the code for what matters to Rebecca, so now it’s down to her to work out what matters to him.
Relationships: Brian Finch/Rebecca Harris
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Take Note

_You’re brilliant_

It’s a sticky note, but the text is printed on, so she can’t even decipher the handwriting. She stands up at her desk, square of yellow paper in one hand and coffee mug in the other. The office churns on around her, as normal.

Nothing stands out, nobody out of the ordinary sneaking away, or lurking in the background to see if she’s read the … love note? Is that what this is? Someone afraid of an office romance but compelled to tell her that they admire her?

Maybe it’s not even meant for her, but her name tag just glares back at her, black letters reflecting the halogen lights above.

“Morning!”

She looks up to see Brian beaming at her, elbows resting on the desk divider.

She lifts the mug to her lips and lowers the note to her side, slipping it into her trouser pocket.

“Morning, Brian.”

“So what have you got for me today?”

She presses her palm against the paper, before bringing her hand out, gesturing for him to head into Naz’s office.

* * *

It’s been a week. Eight days to be precise. Almost enough time to forget.

Almost.

Yet here she is, pulling at the paper that’s stuck to the bottom of her mug and setting her coffee down. She flits her eyes round briefly before coming back to the typed letters looping across the middle of the note.

_I trust you_

The mug doesn’t burn to the touch when she absent-mindedly places a hand against it to steady herself, and she starts at that. Boyle will have been sat there this whole time, waiting for his tea.

Boyle? He knew her, and her routine, and which mug was hers (a FBI mug from Brian that looked like a knock-off to anyone else that looked, but she knew just what he was thinking every time he saw it, even if he wasn’t still wearing the ridiculous t-shirt with the acronym mis-spelled out in full.) Still, it was big enough to hold enough coffee to allow her to keep up with him, so it stuck.

Wait, no, Boyle wouldn’t do this kind of thing, and Boyle especially would not have sent her the first note. So not Boyle, but someone … who did. She ponders it while she makes Boyle’s tea and in the slow walk back to their desks, until Boyle’s gently affronted “hey” knocks her out of her mental roulette of people she knew in the office and onto apologizing for spilling a few drops on his desk.

She pushes it to the back of her mind and shoves the note under the notepad on her desk. This is a mystery, but it will have to be for later.

* * *

She’s not been waiting for it so much as expecting it. What’s the saying – two’s coincidence, three’s a pattern? This one breaks it though – instead of letters printed in black, there are words scratched out in blue ballpoint.

_Resorbed Twin was a failure_

The scrawl and the words jolt something in her memory, and she glances upwards, trying to remember where she’d seen those two words together. A year or so ago, mentioned in the middle of a conversation, pointed on as a printed design, on a t-shirt, on –

He’s standing by HQ! and holding her gaze across the room. She’s the one to break first, looking down at the note. She takes a deep breath. It’s a game, a riddle, and she’s never been one to take the easy way out.

She looks back up and nods, and he just nods back slowly before walking away.

* * *

There’s no common thread between all the notes, assuming that Brian had also left the first two as well. It made sense, even though this one is on the back of a card packet. She supposed that the one about her was objectively true, and they wouldn’t have got this far without trusting each other, but this one is new.

_I’m sorry_

She corners him in HQ!, catching him rounding the desk after Darryl and Jason have walked out. She holds out the note in front of her and he stops.

“Are these supposed to be an apology?”

He looks at her curiously, in a way that makes her seem like more of a puzzle than the series of notes.

“No, but if I need to apologise for …something, let me know what it is. Or if I still have to apologise for … all that.”

She sighs. “I … we’re past that Brian.”

He leans forward, hands flat on the table, waiting.

“What is this then Brian? You know I don’t like surprises.”

“It’s not a _surprise_ -”

“Fine then, I don’t like secrets!”

“Rebecca, it’s _not_ …” He’s staring at her again, and she can almost imagine the puzzle pieces of her aligning to something she can decipher when he looks away.

“I can stop if you want.” He’s chastised, giving in so quickly, when she’s not annoyed so much as curious.

She places the note carefully in her pocket, watching him chew his lip, foot tapping lightly on the floor.

“I didn’t say that.”

She leaves before he can look up.

* * *

She’s not looking out for them. There’s no rhyme or reason to when they arrive or where, other than in the office, and before she’s met him for the day. Other than that, there’s no point keeping an eye out for any flash of color where it shouldn’t be, anything out of place in her carefully curated world.

_I want more_

He’s not supposed to be in today. They’d been against the clock, running around New York for hours on end, and he’d taken two NZT pills back to back. He’d texted her earlier that morning, when he’d finally got back to his apartment, that he was doing fine – the last of countless reassurances over the last two days. The rest of the shift passes in a blur, not least because she’s also tired (although at least she slept) but because it’s always like that without Brian.

Boyle calls it calm, but maybe she’s just gotten used to the excitement. She waves goodbye to him as she wraps up the last of the paperwork and her phone buzzes again.

 **Brian:** just woke up – thank God for NZT immunity :P

She holds her phone in her hands, the cursor blinking in her peripheral vision as she stares at the stationary organizer on her desk.

 **Reb:** Beer o’clock?

The reply is immediate.

 _Brian:_ Always :D

She turns up 30 minutes later, with a six pack of beer, and he greets her with a smile. After that, she’s not sure how they end up 2 beers down, not sure what the conversation’s been about, but it can’t have been about anything serious because his face sobers up instantly when she asks, “what are you doing?”

“What?”

“No, I mean…” She drops the bottle on the table and shoves her hand in her handbag, pulling out her wallet and dropping five squares of paper on his coffee table. “I give up, I don’t get why you’re doing this.”

“Reb…”

“That’s not … I need answers. If you’re caught up in something again, or need more pills – ”

“No!” His denial is emphatic. “It’s not any of that.” He puts his own bottle down, careful to avoid the strewn notes, before turning in his seat, sitting cross-legged with his hands firmly clasped in his lap.

“Back when… when we thought I might not survive, you asked me to be honest with you.” He holds up a hand to stop her interjection. “And I told myself that I would do that, no matter what the cost, because I couldn’t break that promise to you again.”

He shuffles in his seat, and there’s something about the moment that makes her head spin, even before he continues speaking.

“You mean a lot to me, and I wanted this time to be different. To be better.”

“It already _is_ better Brian. What more do you want?”

His hands are hovering in the space between them, and she searches his eyes, for the truth, for a tell, for something that’ll ground her.

“You told me once that you didn’t care about me because you had to.” She nods sharply in confirmation. “So I wanted to know if that meant you might care for me as more than just a consultant, or a colleague, or a friend.”

She takes a deep breath, to hold back the spluttering of her mind that might make its way out of her mouth.

“…You decided a series of notes would be the best way to find that out?” Her voice is far too pitched up, but there’s a smile tugging at her lips.

“Yeah, well, I needed to get your attention!” He shrugs and leans back, his own grin out in the open and smug.

“You could have just asked!”

“Well, okay then: Rebecca Harris, would you like to go on a date sometime?”

She locks eyes with him, cataloguing the nervous swallow, the twitch in his fingers, the way he’s almost holding his breath.

“I’ll let you know.”

“… wait what?”

She gets up, swiping up the notes from the table, and she’s half way towards the door before there’s a thud of him stumbling over himself to follow her. She stops and spins on the spot, and he barely catches himself from barreling into her.

“Brian, we work in the same office … so I can leave you a note too.”

The smile has returned, but the look in his eyes makes her breath hitch, and then stop entirely, as he leans forwards. She’s frozen on the spot, but the arm that reaches behind her doesn’t find its place on her hip.

Cold air fills the space he leaves behind as he leans back, and it takes her a second to realize he’s put something in her hand. Looking down, she sees a sticky note separating their palms.

“I look forward to your reply.”

It’s an anniversary, maybe _the_ anniversary, but she wakes to the alarm and a cold bed. She reaches out a hand to turn off the alarm, and finds her fingers pressing into paper.

It’s a bright pink note.

_I’ll always be honest with you._

There’s another one on the back of their bedroom door.

_Blue is your colour._

She pulls open the door and there’s another one within eye sight. She follows them one at a time.

By the time she’s made it into the kitchen, she can’t help but laugh at the sight – Brian, hair still sleep-scruffy, surrounded by what might as well be another one of his crafting projects.

It’s not though – not from the way he holds out a hand at her surprised gasp and pulls her in; not from the other notes that are pressed into her palm, not from the way she can feel his heart beating against her ear and knows her own is thrumming too.

“How long did this take?”

“Normal Brian needed two cups of coffee and an hour.” She laughs at the sleep that weaves its way into the sentence, her own yawn triggering off his.

She leans up to press a kiss on his jawline before taking a step back to admire the words that are spelt out in big block letters, deep blue on countless pink sticky notes.

“I love you too Brian.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the line "So, we're gonna be honest with each other on this one, right?" from the season finale.


End file.
